Boring and wasteful if you left 20 minutes from the end!!

The stats say it all about a Bristol Rovers season that goes from one disaster to another as Darrell Clarke's side slumped to another Home defeat against opposition that can only be described as dreadful which goes to show just how bad a side DC has managed to put together. I can still just about remember when we used to sing to the City fans "Will you ever beat the gas?" - The song now would be "Will the gas beat anybody?" Fortress Mem with its often poor playing surface  (which was not the reason we were so good there) has now become an excellent playing surface that we just don't seem to be able to play on and has almost become our own graveyard. The team seems to totally reflect the Managers inconsistent selection and it is becoming rare now to be able to judge who should be substituted because there are so many candidates. in truth there are times where you wish he could use six of the seven substitutes. It could have gone so much worse last night as based on recent trends he could easily have used all three substitutes before Bonham's injury. watching Rovers this season is a very frustrating experience as you do get a period of the game where the players actually look class but this was last night limited to the last twenty odd minutes.

The fact is that DC has the side set up with a laborious pace that is near walking pace and allows the opposition to get behind the ball and wait for us to generally over hit the ball or misplace the pass and quite often we can find an attack that started just inside the opposition half ends up back with our goalkeeper. constantly changing a side ends up with very few understandings between the various units and this is very much the case at Rovers. The pre season friendlies should give the Manager some idea of his best side but this has never really happened under Darrell and last night it was another case of 4 changes and a change of formation or should I say another "Roll of the dice".

I said after Saturday to give DC the two home games to get decent results but IMO there is little point in doing this now and DC must be put out of his seeming misery. He is obviously not happy with those above him and that was again clear in his after match interview but the problem is that his misery is now totally reflected in the team and maybe only a change at the top is capable of rejuvenating this side as we seem to be defeated before we enter the arena (for want of a better name-perhaps circus would be more appropriate) Let us make no mistake we are not being beaten by good teams -in fact the absolute opposite - we have been beaten by any tripe the opposition Manager can dish up in what I can only describe as possibly the worst League 1 for many years and to sum it up at present I will be very surprised if at some stage between now and January we will be bottom of the heap.

Bonham 3 Following a hesitant performance Saturday where he appeared to be carrying an injury he went down in stages to an innocuous shot for the opening goal and then  was a spectator for the remaining half and until he went off injured with nobody around him. The performance of his replacement makes you hope that it is not a serious injury.


Partington 2 Awful from start to finish. I struggle to understand why DC keeps swopping with Leadbitter instead of one of them getting the chance to play himself into form.
Lockyer 5 Back to hitting aimless balls and struggling against the tall Eaves and don't get me started on his leadership because it is totally non existent. There just isn't any drive in the side. 
Craig 4 Passing is not his greatest quality and the extent to which he is passed the ball is ridiculous as is the number of times his passes end up either in touch or with the opposition 
Martin 5 An Ok performance.


Bennett 5 Ran and ran and ran with jinxing runs that promise plenty but deliver little. cannot fault his effort and at least he was trying to do something constructive. DC's tactics are bewildering and I am lost as to what he is thinking at the moment. The astonishing thing is that we managed 24 shots and the reason I say that is because our players lack the desire to actually get into the penalty area and are mainly one paced and laborious about everything they do.
Sinclair 2 Not even the legendary tackles and enthusiasm. Looks a  Non league player who is past his best and even at his best his creativity is very little.
Lines 4  I can only remember one or two trademark runs but what I remember more is his inability to get further than about ten yards from his defenders and most passes being back to players who cannot pass a ball to save their lives and when you have Sinclair in there as well then you have to feel sorry for the creative players.
Sercombe 7 MOM Woke up from a first half sleep to pretty well take on Gillingham singlehandedly. Superb free kick from 30 yards that flew past the keeper, stunning volley onto the foot of the post and behind everything good we did. He is the only player who looks likely to score and showed in the second half why he should be the first person on the team sheet.

Rodman 4 Lacked support and early passes from Colleagues until he was tightly marked. I thought that with the team selected we would press Gillingham up high with Rodman, Bennett and even Sinclair harassing the defenders. Instead we had Nichols instead of Payne fighting a lone battle that he had little to no chance of winning.


Nichols 5.5 His hold up play at times was absolutely superb but the problem is that there were rarely any players up there with him and most of his lay offs gave Sercombe or Bennett a chance to run directly at the opposition but the problem was that most of their direct running ended with shots that lacked conviction or attempts at too many passes. Nichols failure to take the rare good chances he gets was evident again when he sent a tame header from two yards out straight at the keeper when if he had any sort of understanding with Payne he would have left the ball. 


Subs: Payne 4 Unlucky with a near post header and surely would have put away the chance that Nichols headed feebly to the keeper had he been left the ball but the truth is that whoever plays up front is left isolated chasing shadows for the majority of the game - DC once criticised Ward for his style of play but this is far worse with no partnerships or understanding and little to no pace. 
Smith 2 How on earth the second goal went past him I haven't a clue as a "sack of potatoes" is the only way of describing how he let in a shot which he appeared to do everything possible to get out of the way of.
Matthews 4 Works hard but seems to run into players rather than into space.


Crowd 5 The numbers represents the total decline of the club and the total lack of goals and if it wasn't for including Season Ticket holders who didn't attend I would be surprised if there was over 6000 in the ground and I doubt if there will even be that many for the Doncaster game. 
Ref 7 Let down by what looked another case of atrocious Linesman failing to pick up what looked like an obvious offside decision before the first goal went in but from where I was it could have been a case of a full back playing him on but it definitely looked another poor decision. Can't blame the referee as for me his performance was far superior to the two poor teams  if you take away the final twenty minutes. 
Gillingham 4 Bloody dreadful. Their only two shots on target were pathetic efforts that most keepers would certainly have stopped. Tom Eaves was a handful without ever reaching his best but clearly showed how much we miss a presence like his.

DC Sorrry but after this rubbish put him in a sack along with Marcus Stewart and his band of coaches ,physical assesors, CEO and the other waste of space that Wael seems to have employed and send them off to Santa as a job lot. DC's  heart for the club cannot be doubted but as we sit four points adrift of safety I have fears that by January we could well be all but relegated as we have only managed to beat one of the thirteen teams around us and have failed to beat 8 of those teams at home. What can DC be learning from his constant changes other than the players he has signed are not good enough or should I say do not appear to be good enough. I struggle to remember the last time a DC team came out and performed for two halves of a football match and our "strikers" and I use that term very lightly could not strike a match! 24 shots with only 5 on target tell a story in itself and it has reached the stage where it would be a shock if any attacking player other than Sercombe scored a goal.

So we move on to our next disaster- a visit to the Mem of Doncaster. Will DC still be in charge? I think he will. Will we win? Very unlikely. Will there be any changes from last nights team? Of course. the trouble is at the moment that the medicine is not curing the illness , in fact it it making the illness worse. Oh I've even forgotten the fact we have a visit to the Liberty well it may as well be the statue of Liberty as we face the embarrassment of losing to an Under 23 side in what has now become the most embarrassing trophy of all time. UTG